Authors, agents, editors, publishers, and readers gathered at the PEN Literary Gala on Wednesday to celebrate the freedom of expression. Tina Brown, Laurence Kirshbaum, and Virginia Mailman co-chaired the gala, which drew scores of the scribbling set to the American Museum of Natural History.

The winner of the 2006 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award was a translator and government whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, whom the Federal Bureau of Investigation fired in 2002.Trained in Turkish, Farsi, and Azerbaijani, Ms. Edmonds reported that she was told to work slowly to create the appearance that her department was overworked. She went on to found the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition in 2004. Appearing on a video, actor Paul Newman spoke, quoting President Truman’s dictum that “When even one American – who has done nothing wrong – is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all of Americans are in peril.”

An independent literary publisher in Egypt, Mohamed Hashem, was awarded the Jeri Laber International Freedom To Publish Award. He was harassed and beaten by police. Two works of political nonfiction that he published were confiscated at the Cairo airport.

The PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom To Write Award went to a former director of a private daily newspaper in Algeria, Mohammed Benchicou, and a novelist, historian, and freelance correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Rakhim Esenov, of Turkmenistan. During a video shown about Mr. Esenov, the narrator described the cult of personality surrounding Turkmenistan’s leader, Saparmurat Niyazov, who has renamed days of the week after himself and his mother. Mr. Esenov suffered a stroke while being interrogated by the Turkmen Ministry of National Security.

Over the years, 30 former recipients of the award were in prison when they received the award. Of those, 28 have since been set free, often within months of having received the award. Ms. Goldsmith said a recipient had never been present to receive an award – until Wednesday night.

The audience gave a standing ovation as Mr. Esenov approached the podium. His remarks translated into English included:

Gratitude is like love which speaks not. The more a person swears his love, the less he is believed, for great love proves itself not through words but through deeds. But I cannot keep silent. My tongue will burn, as the Turkmen say.

I’ll be brief. Thank you, America. Thank you to your noble sons and your worthy daughters whose efforts gave me freedom and brought me here to this wonderful hall. It is a very noble and humane to fight for someone you don’t know, and to see him as a human being.

Would that I could mention everyone by name. Would that I could embrace all 3,100 members of PEN American Center who experienced another’s pain, another’s suffering. In my heart, I embrace you.

In the Gospels it says, “Hallowed be thy name.” And so I say to you, “Hallowed be your name, dear friends.”

In the audience were: Martin Sherwin, who co-authored a biography on J. Robert Oppenheimer that won the Pulitzer Prize this year; Dominick Dunne, who is writing a novel called “A Solo Act”; Liz Smith, who is writing a novel called “Sex After Death”; Sidney Offit, curator of the George Polk Awards, which were given yesterday; and E.L. Doctorow, who has a forthcoming book called “Creationists” about writers, not the Scopes trial. He joked that he would like the illustration credit on the dust jacket to read, “Intelligently designed by …”

Nearby was film theorist Andrew Sarris, whose autobiography will be called “The Accidental Auteurist”; Tim Zagat; Adam Gopnik; Lewis Lapham, who is working on a print publication to be called Lapham’s Quarterly; Jonathan Lethem, who has a short comic novel coming out in March called “You Don’t Love Me Yet”; and Daniel Halpern, who will be celebrating the 35th anniversary of Ecco Press. Grace Paley, a former writing faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College, was talking with fellow college faculty member Victoria Redel.

Grove Atlantic chieftain Morgan Entrekin was bullish on a book about a teddy bear that comes to life and gets arrested under the Patriot Act. Junot Diaz was talking to Calvin Baker, whose forthcoming novel, “Dominion,” takes place around the time of the American Revolution.

PEN American Center President Ron Chernow spoke about challenges to civil liberties from tyrants abroad as well as warning about the slow, spacious, “spreading cloak of national security” at home.

Mr. Chernow described the various PEN centers around the world as a “literary archipelago.” Bernard-Henri Levy later told The New York Sun that PEN American center plays a larger role than its French counterpart. He said, for example, that he doesn’t even know who the president of the French PEN center is.

Also seen was Azar Nafisi, who has recently written a children’s book in Italian called “Bibi and the Green Voice” (Adelphi), which is about the concept of home. “PEN is not only about writing. It’s about the freedom to read,” she told the Sun.

Francine Prose was speaking with Billy Collins. The Sun asked what they were working on, and Ms. Prose wryly suggested, “Why don’t I tell you what Billy is working on, and he’ll tell you what I’m working on?” This column said, “Okay.”

“I’d imagine,” she continued, “Billy is working on some poems.” Mr. Collins said Ms. Prose was working on a novel based on the rocker Keith Richards.

He guessed she was reading William Trevor’s “Felicia’s Journey.” She suggested he was reading “Crime and Punishment.” “Again,” Mr. Collins added.

Is this a kind of parlor game? No. “It’s called writer’s ESP,” Ms. Prose said.

gshapiro@nysun.com